Fresh ink. Just coming from the publishing company, we have received a copy of “Extraterrestres ante las Cámaras – Volumen 7” (Extraterrestrials in front of the Cameras – Volume 7) written by the UAPSG member Engineer Luis Ruiz Noguez, from Mexico.

It is a fine printed book, with a size of those for collection: 8.5 inches x 11 inches.

This is a very serious work of analysis of photos that persumably show extraterrestrial beings.

Meticulously done, Eng. Ruiz Noguez shreds each and every case and comes to the conclusion that there are not legitimate pictures of ETs.

Looking for money or publicity, simply making a joke or trying to proof the expertise of the investigators, there many reasons why some people fake pictures.

But the rigorous application of the scientific method is a great filter for all those situations.

This book is a must for the investigators and scholars dealing with the Unusual Aerial Phenomena.

We sincerely recommend it. It is written in Spanish, it is fully illustrated and has a foreword by Lic. Milton W. Hourcade.

Not so long ago (on November 12) a photographer from Uruguay approached us with a digital picture that showed a set of birds standing on a wire and something distant that could be anything.

It was a little dark spot.

The photographer wanted to know what it was, because he has not seen anything abnormal when he took the photo.

The picture was taken in a seaside resort.

It was during the process of downloading it to his PC when he noticed that strange spot.

Members of UAPSG started working inmediately not only in Uruguay but also in Mexico and the United States.

Few days later the mystery was solved: that strange spot came to be a bird flying with its wings folded.

The conclusion was unanimous within the international team that worked in the case.

The digital analysis of the picture was done in the USA, the verification with a databank containing photos of birds was done in Mexico, and the talk with the photographer was done in Uruguay.

It is fair to say that the photographer really wanted to know what it was, and had no interest whatsoever in make a profit selling the picture, or to get public going to the media, or putting the picture in YouTube claiming it was a UFO.

We really commend the behavior of the photographer and thank him for his good will to cooperate with our study.

The case allowed to demonstrate the efficiency of our international organization, and how it is possible to coordinate the study of a case to have an effective result.

WASHINGTON -- NASA-funded astrobiology research has changed the fundamental knowledge about what comprises all known life on Earth.

Researchers conducting tests in the harsh environment of Mono Lake in California have discovered the first known microorganism on Earth able to thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical arsenic. The microorganism substitutes arsenic for phosphorus in its cell components.

"The definition of life has just expanded," said Ed Weiler, NASA's associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at the agency's Headquarters in Washington. "As we pursue our efforts to seek signs of life in the solar system, we have to think more broadly, more diversely and consider life as we do not know it."

This finding of an alternative biochemistry makeup will alter biology textbooks and expand the scope of the search for life beyond Earth. The research is published in this week's edition of Science Express.

Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur are the six basic building blocks of all known forms of life on Earth. Phosphorus is part of the chemical backbone of DNA and RNA, the structures that carry genetic instructions for life, and is considered an essential element for all living cells.

Phosphorus is a central component of the energy-carrying molecule in all cells (adenosine triphosphate) and also the phospholipids that form all cell membranes. Arsenic, which is chemically similar to phosphorus, is poisonous for most life on Earth. Arsenic disrupts metabolic pathways because chemically it behaves similarly to phosphate.

"We know that some microbes can breathe arsenic, but what we've found is a microbe doing something new -- building parts of itself out of arsenic," said Felisa Wolfe-Simon, a NASA astrobiology research fellow in residence at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif., and the research team's lead scientist. "If something here on Earth can do something so unexpected, what else can life do that we haven't seen yet?"

The newly discovered microbe, strain GFAJ-1, is a member of a common group of bacteria, the Gammaproteobacteria. In the laboratory, the researchers successfully grew microbes from the lake on a diet that was very lean on phosphorus, but included generous helpings of arsenic. When researchers removed the phosphorus and replaced it with arsenic the microbes continued to grow. Subsequent analyses indicated that the arsenic was being used to produce the building blocks of new GFAJ-1 cells.

The key issue the researchers investigated was when the microbe was grown on arsenic did the arsenic actually became incorporated into the organisms' vital biochemical machinery, such as DNA, proteins and the cell membranes. A variety of sophisticated laboratory techniques were used to determine where the arsenic was incorporated.

The team chose to explore Mono Lake because of its unusual chemistry, especially its high salinity, high alkalinity, and high levels of arsenic. This chemistry is in part a result of Mono Lake's isolation from its sources of fresh water for 50 years.

The results of this study will inform ongoing research in many areas, including the study of Earth's evolution, organic chemistry, biogeochemical cycles, disease mitigation and Earth system research. These findings also will open up new frontiers in microbiology and other areas of research.

"The idea of alternative biochemistries for life is common in science fiction," said Carl Pilcher, director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute at the agency's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "Until now a life form using arsenic as a building block was only theoretical, but now we know such life exists in Mono Lake."

The research team included scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey, Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz., Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., Duquesne University in Pittsburgh and the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource in Menlo Park.

NASA's Astrobiology Program in Washington contributed funding for the research through its Exobiology and Evolutionary Biology program and the NASA Astrobiology Institute. NASA's Astrobiology Program supports research into the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life on Earth.

Note: The U.A.P.S.G. was present at the press conference in the person of our member Milton W. Hourcade

WASHINGTON -- NASA will hold a news conference at 2 p.m. EST on Thursday, Dec. 2, to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life. Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe.

The news conference will be held at the NASA Headquarters auditorium at 300 E St. SW, in Washington. It will be broadcast live on NASA Television and streamed on the agency's website at http://www.nasa.gov.

Yes, they could be classified as shoddy or trashy U.F.O.s without hesitation.

Those are the results of a new wave of behavior of certain people.

They go outdoors, at any time, although preferably at night, and they start taking pictures to the sky, anywhere in the sky, it doesn’t matter.

Or they are on a place taking some pictures of trees, or a lake, birds or flowers.

The key thing happens later.

They go to their PCs or laptops, they download their pictures and lo and behold!, a mysterious dot appears in one of the pictures they have taken.

Or many dots in different pictures, specially if they were taken at night (they are technically know as “orbs”), and voilá! Once again they think they have been able to photograph U.F.O.s! And of course, for them “U.F.O.” is something totally identified as an extraterrestrial spaceship! They totally skip the “U” of the acronym.

These are enthusiasts of the ET idea, they are honest people, they don't want to lie on purpose, or to make business with their pictures. They feel that they have met the unknown.

Objectively, nevertheless, that is not the case.A couple of things, therefore, have to be said:

1) These people are not witnesses, because they have seen nothing.

2) Their interpretation of what afterward appears in some pictures is totally biased, irrational, and has no point of support.

Therefore, they are not in conditions to declare publicly that they have photographed an extraterrestrial spaceship, which is what they understand when they use the acronym “U.F.O.”.

The task to identify what has been seen or photographed, or to declare it Unidentified belongs to the investigators and scholars dealing with the issue.

And it is something that really works for the organizers of annual congresses done not all the time in the same place, although there are places looked as “historical” that call for the repetition of such activities every year.

They are business with the excuse of “UFOs”, or more precisely, of the extraterrestrial myth and a rainbow of individuals that makes their living of that.

Those congresses are a pretext to promote tourism to one particular area.From organized trips to “special places”, to the percentage that the organizers will get after an arrangement with a hotel where a congress would be held, everything tends to satisfy clients, entertain public, and at the end…make money out of the UFO subject.

This is the truth behind the vast majority of those meetings.

Exceptionally there could be some of them, which really pursue to deal in depth with the UFO subject, and those kinds of activities are exclusively related to a very selective group of people specially invited.

Those are not public events, they are not open to the public at large, and those who participate are a limited number of scientists and or experts, who will deliberate for some days about the issue and come out with certain recommendations, guides for a future work, and an evaluation of the whole issue if it is possible.

Those are the serious activities that later could be known by the general public through a press conference, and or a book, etc.

An example of that was the First Colloquy of the River Plate, organized by C.I.O.V.I., in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1962.

Another example was the scientific panel convened in Pocantico, New York, in 1998, by Professor Dr. Peter Sturrock.

Outside of that kind of activities, the so-called “UFO congresses” in general, are activities to promote the personal infatuation of some people, and the way many of them are making money exploiting the UFO subject, selling magazines, books, CDs, DVDs, and many objects done by artisans, etc. On the top of all of that, the perpetuation of the extraterrestrial myth is a condition “sine-qua-non”.

Science and a serious approach to the subject have nothing to do with all of that.

Due to certain publicity given to a Congress that will be held in Montevideo, Uruguay, during this month, the UFO Phenomenon has returned to the media.

After having contributed with other people and along many years to provide correct information about the issue through articles, speeches, conferences, interviews and so on, I have felt a sensation of bitterness when I see how this subject is dealt by the local media.

I realized that no matter how much it has been pointed out through the years, many journalists and a lot of people that took contact with the media do not have by themselves the clear meaning of what “UFO” strictly means.

Once again there have been mentions related to “believe or not in the existence of UFOs” suggesting that those could be artifacts of extra-terrestrial origin, without realizing the evident contradiction implicit in that way of defining them.

They are one thing or the other, but not both of them…

Would it be necessary to start explaining again these things? Regretfully it seems that it would be the case from time to time, because apparently these things are easily forgotten.

I also think that the media has not taken seriously the subject. It seems like if it is placed in the border between reality and fantasy…and there is a tendency to exploit the fantastic side. Evidently, may be it is more attractive and the one that gets much interest among the general public.

Also in this opportunity, there is not a contribution of the publicized Congress itself, according with its program .

I think that in that Congress there are certain issues that should not be mixed with others, if there were the intention to give to the event a serious scientific tone.

As an example, it could be said that on a scientific congress about Medicine there wouldn’t be included “sorcerers” and their experiences.

KCBS television caught the long exhaust plume on camera as it arced into the evening sky west of Los Angeles on Monday night, sparking reports of a missile launch. But The US military has so far been unable to explain an apparent missile vapour trail off the coast of California, and is still trying to determine its cause, a Pentagon spokesman said.

An AP cable dated on Wednesday, November 10, 2010, says among other things:

Pentagon officials were stumped by the event. "Nobody within the Department of Defense that we've reached out to has been able to explain what this contrail is, where it came from," Pentagon spokesman Col. Dave Lapan said.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, issued a statement jointly with the U.S. Northern Command, or NORTHCOM, saying that the contrail was not the result of a foreign military launching a missile. It provided no details.

"We can confirm that there is no threat to our nation," the statement said. "We will provide more information as it becomes available."

NORTHCOM is the U.S. defense command and NORAD is a U.S.-Canadian organization charged with protecting the U.S. from the threat of missiles or hostile aircraft.

And this Wednesday, on MSNBC an expert in Aeronautics commented that in that area of the West of the country they are always testing different kind of airplanes and other aerial artifacts, about which the general public is not informed.

An he added: “Someone knows what is it about but won’t tell.”

I concur totally with this expert and I would like to suggest that what was seen was a second test of the hypersonic X-51, which had its first test on Sping of 2010, and of which there has been no intention so far to give information to the public.

This video illustrates the test.

Or it could have been another test of the anti-ballistic missile Arrow for the Israeli Defense, which are tested in the United States, and precisely in California.

August 4, 2010.

An Arrow anti-ballistic missile is launched as part of the on going United States/Israel Arrow System Improvement Program (ASIPP). The missile successfully intercepted a short-range target during tests at the Point Mugu Sea Range in California. This was the twelfth Arrow intercept test and the seventh test of the complete Arrow system. The objective of the test was to demonstrate the Arrow system’s improved performance against a target that represents a threat to Israel. The test represented a realistic scenario that could not have been tested in Israel due to test-field safety restrictions.

UMMO – A myth instigated by American agentsA letter of J.L. Jordán Peña reveals it all

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No one that has worked in the UFO field could ignore the “affaire UMMO”.

Also, no one seriously dealing with the UFO subject could have believed in that tricky although obviously astute manipulation.

Only those feeble of spirit or people with fantasy prone personalities could have given a minute of consideration to such a masquerade.

But nevertheless, there were many of that kind of people in different parts of the world.

We knew people that considered themselves important because they have received a letter from UMMO.

The whole subject subsided with the time and with the clear evidence that it was a big hoax.

But now there is a confession made by the main responsible for the hoax: Mr. José Luis Jordán Peña, from Spain.

The most important thing is that on a letter where he confess to be the main author of the whole hoax, he declares something outstanding:

“Two American citizens named Doctor Jonathan F. Mac Guire and his assistant, Professor Arnold J. Lebotski which worked for an Official Organization, contacted me many years ago in Alicante and asked me to help them to develop a sociological experiment for the good of the Western Culture……They always paid me in dollar bills…In exchange, all that I had to do was to invent a world of fantasy (although inspired in their suggestions) and spread it with total freedom among my friends and acquaintances.”

This is a corroboration of the way that American intelligence agencies have been manipulating the public opinion in relation with the UFO subject.

The Pentacle memorandum, Project Stork, etc. become once again relevant in the context of this new revelation.

Lessons to learn particularly by people that sometimes are extremely naïve when dealing with the UFO subject.

We propose a vehicle which employs no moving parts and assures near instanteous response time with 360 degrees maneuverability.

Goal: Fundamental development in the plasma based flow actuation using atmospheric medium: (a) to improve at least an order of magnitude in thrust generation; (b) to improve at least an order of magnitude in power/weight ratio.

This is a proposal of the Applied Physics Research Group, Computational Plasma Dynamics Laboratory and Test Facility, at the University of Florida, USA.

The serious and dedicated Chilean journalist Diego Zuñiga, a UAPSG member, is writing to let us know some news that from this pages we salute wishing a total success. Diego prepared for us this report that we reproduce here and we take the opportunity to invite him to continue writing for our blog.

Four years should have gone for La Nave de los Locos to return to sail along the then turbulent but now boring oceans ofUfology. The magazine, this photocopied bulletin that some of you had thefortune or misery of reading between 2000 and 2006, disappeared for boredom, for lack of time, because maybe it seemed that there was nothing more to reach. But La Nave comes back. The deliriums continues and it's time to open windows and wait for more air, and wait to show another faces of reality.

And it is no more a collection of papers, but it is a book with 173 pages, covers of brilliant paper, interior pages of beautiful opaque tone. With a renewed design, our magazine-book opens a new stage in its existence with a dossier on the actual situation of Ufology. Has this thing a future? Or maybe the Martians are bored of coming to our planet just to hammer his silvered flying saucers? There are articles written by the British investigator John Rimmer, his colleague Jenny Randles, theSpanish specialist Manuel Borraz, and the Nave’s editors, Zúñiga y Sánchez.

Though this issue is basically about UFOs, there is material on another topics. Alejandro Borgo, representative in Argentina of CSI (http://www.csicop.org), tells us about an atheist meeting in Mar del Plata, Argentina. Also we can read an article of Crystian Sanchez about prophecies. Marcos González talks us on tarot. In addition, two interviews: one of them to Spanish anthropologist Ignacio Cabria and the other one to Chilean ufologist Willy Wolf, co writer of “Los sin nombre”. Also the Chilean sociologist Rigoberto Muñoz gives us his text about the poor level of Chilean ufologists.

Another text talks about UFOs during the past Chilean earthquake on February 27th about a Mexican who said he was in Venus and even wrote a book about his “experience”. Other article deals with cattle mutilations and economic crisis in Argentina. Other one speaks about Mr. LuisAltamirano, a well-respected Chilean ufologist who tries to recover of a disease, and finally, a deep view of French specialist Claude Maugé about UFOs and a reductionist theory.

La Nave de los Locos (“Cuadernos de Ufologia” 2002 Prize) has been an open book for all kind of opinions and now there will be no difference. It is, of course, a skeptical publication, but we don’t make proselytism, but we show the other face, which is our view of reality. In this way, we are opento collaborations, letters and hate too. You can know more about all of this visiting our official website, http://www.lanavedeloslocos.cl; also review our periodical updates in our blog http://navelocos.blogspot.com; and if you like, you could also buy our magazine here: http://www.lulu.com/product/tapa-blanda/la-nave-de-los-locos-n%c2%b0-37/12107110

Two weeks ago, U.S.-based astronomers announced the discovery of the first Goldilocks planet circling another star: just the right size and just the right temperature to harbor alien life. But yesterday at an exoplanet meeting in Turin, Italy, Switzerland-based astronomers announced that they could find no trace of the prized planet in their observations of the same planetary system.

All the excitement has been over the subtlest of wiggles in the motion of the star Gliese 581 that lies just 20 light-years from the sun in the direction of the constellation Libra. A consortium of institutions led by the Observatory of Geneva in Switzerland had already discovered four planets circling Gliese 581 by sorting out the subtle motions of the star that are induced by the gravitational tugs of any orbiting planets.

On 29 September, a U.S.-based team led by astronomer Steven Vogt of the University of California, Santa Cruz, announced that it had discovered a fifth planet. The American team used a combined set of observations: One 11-year-long set consisted of 122 measurements made by the team, while the other set was 4.3 years long and consisted of 119 measurements published by the consortium.

Designated Gliese 581g, the new planet has at least three times the mass of Earth—large enough to hold on to a watery atmosphere—and orbits at a distance from its star that would allow any water to remain liquid. That would make 581g a happy home for life as we know it.

But at this week's Astrophysics of Planetary Systems meeting, astronomer Francesco Pepe of the Geneva Observatory and the Swiss group reported that he and his colleagues could find no reliable sign of a fifth planet in Gliese 581's habitable zone. They used only their own observations, but they expanded their published data set from what the U.S. group included in its analysis to a length of 6.5 years and 180 measurements. "We do not see any evidence for a fifth planet ... as announced by Vogt et al.," Pepe wrote Science in an e-mail from the meeting. On the other hand, "we can't prove there is no fifth planet." No one yet has the required precision in their observations to prove the absence of such a small exoplanet, he notes.

Astronomer Paul Butler, a member of the U.S. team who is at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C., says he can't comment on the Swiss work because he wasn't at the meeting and the data are unpublished. He notes, however, that more observations will likely be needed to solidify the existence of Gliese 581g. "I would expect that on the time scale of a year or two this should be settled."

"I have come to support less and less the idea that UFOs are 'nuts and bolts' spacecrafts from other worlds. There are just too many things going against this theory. To me, it seems ridiculous that super intelligences would travel great distances to do relatively stupid things like stop cars, collect soil samples, and frighten people. I think we must begin to re-examine the evidence. We must begin to look closer to home." Dr. Joseph Allen Hynek